


Cracked, Not Broken

by puddinpotato



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Mad Max - Freeform, Slavery, Survival, non explicit non-con, resue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 09:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4133196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puddinpotato/pseuds/puddinpotato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max continues on his lonesome journey into a nothing land.  Some months after setting off from the Citadel, thinking he’s left all familiar faces behind him, he finds someone within the walls of a trading village, lead along by a brute of a man who has claimed him as his “Pretty”.  Max has to make the decision to either help the young pale boy out, or leave him to be nothing but a possession.  After all, the War Boy did take his blood, and his jacket, so why should Max get involved?  Um...hehe...discontinued?  Come on, I got War Boys to write about man!  I don't have time for some strange concoction of Thunderdome meets Fury Road only a helluva lot more boring. (trust me it got pretty boring) Check out the other story, with War Boys, as War Pups and...onward.  It's got Nux and Slit and Coma and Furiosa in it okay :/</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracked, Not Broken

**Author's Note:**

> I write this, mostly for my love of Nux and the Mad Max franchise in general. These movies are my happy place and Nux is a sweet little pile of innocence within this place. Another large reason I write this is for writing’s sake. I’ve been stuck in a rut lately, unable to fully finish my already near abandoned fic but I do wish to continue, and I do wish to do something with this. Not sure what yet, but I am great at adding OC’s, especially multiple OC’s. But that’s a large part of the Mad Max universe. The unforgettable characters. Anyways, right now, just a narrative to start, a prelude, an attempt at something. If it succeeds I may very well come up with a full on story, to the best of my abilities (I’m no car fanatic but at least I can drive a stick).
> 
> And yes, I sometimes have humorous chapter titles...

Cracked, Not Broken

The War Boy Who Lived 

XXX

It wasn’t hard to leave. Not hard at all. Never was really, maybe the first time, when shit first went sour, when the world was finally meeting its end, when the roads were disappearing and the oil wars were expanding. It was hard to leave then, hard to say goodbye, harder to move on, to find a sense of peace in this fucked up wasteland. Friends, family, dead. Acquaintances, lost to the sands, dust in the wind, old memories pushed behind him for a search to the end of the road. Where did this road end though? The pavement was gone, buried under the desert that swallowed up all he knew, and so how could he find his way? How could he find them? Taken from him, his fault, all his, and they would be the end of him. 

Had he found his redemption? He hardly believed so. Once again he had been swept up into another person’s war, throwing in a helping hand when all he wanted to do was carry on his way, find the end, but no, old road warrior Max had to have a heart under that hard leather and stone face. Fuck me, he would think, sometimes say aloud. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.

Leaving the Citadel literally, was not hard at all. With their god dead at their feet, the oppressed people tearing apart his limbs when all his sons could do was watch, Max was able to slip away, a casting glance to the face he’d leave behind and he searched for a vehicle. Furiosa would be the leader now, he thought. She was a woman of power before, a step or two down from the Immortan himself, a favorite, respected and admired by her fellow War Boys. That was before she ripped off Joe’s face of course.

Not my problem he told himself as he gathered what he could. Not the Gigahorse, he wouldn’t take that thing, not a bike either, he needed room for supplies. His car…oh his poor car. How many times had he managed it? Rebuilt it? Seen it pummeled into the sand before his eyes. Oh his poor Interceptor…guess this old Camaro mashup would have to do. The remaining Pups and Boys watched him cautiously, taking a wheel for himself straight from a young Pup’s hand and a Boy pulled him back. Max at first thought, protectiveness, but they were all terminal in his eyes and he left them with a grunt, their gazes stuck to his back, the Pup muttering, “He’s got Nux’s boot” and the Boy who’d pulled him back shushed him. 

Max carried on.

For a long time he didn’t think about the wives, Furiosa, Nux, the Vuvalini. For a long time he left them behind him. The events, the chases, the sought after redemption. He bypassed the mountains, knowing full well the war that was raging beyond the pass, beyond the turned war rig with the young Boy’s body, probably still inside, Max thought. Probably mangled, grotesque now, but he went how he wanted didn’t he? Nux died historic on the Fury Road and they would tell stories about him, about how he betrayed his master, became a hero, he’d slip into history with a name at least. Max remembered him a moment as he cast a glance to the far off battle. Factions fighting over power and metal and removing the rig. They’d return to the Citadel…and Max focused on the road ahead of him. 

South. He’d head South.

A month rolled by, then another, another two and he found a small source of water. Rain had fallen, and he filled every bowl and bottle he had with it and thought of it being poison. Another month and he went through two tires now, trading his bitter water for fuel and then a month and he was thirsty, hungry, and his car was cranking and sputtering. 

A town. A village with gates and clunky chunks of metal parked at its wall. A small little haven in this wasteland that Max would take advantage of, even if it did bring back memories of another town, more people he would have preferred to forget. What ever happened to those kids? Who knows…

There was a gate keeper in this place, a thick man, not too old but with metal in one eye socket and three missing fingers. “What’s your business here?” he asked, a rasp in his throat and Max noticed the lumps on his arms. A sick man.

“I need supplies. Food, water… a mechanic.” Few words, short and simple; he wasn’t here to make friends.

Disinterested, but doing his job all the same, the man nodded. “How long have you traveled?”

He thought a moment, squinting in the sun. “183 days,” he answered. “Give or take, I pulled a couple allnighters…”

“Weapons at the door,” said the sick man, and he rang a bell and the fence opened and Max wandered inside, guards urging him leave his guns and knives.

He always kept something on him though, it wasn’t a bad idea to be prepared. No whistle this time but a small knife hidden under his brace. That too, needed mending, a partial limp in his step as he went along his way.

….

“Three days,” said the mechanic, a young dark skinned man named Clacker. 

Max stared, disgruntled. The hell… “Three days? It’s just a belt!”

“Yeah and I got four more cars ahead of you. Three days,” he stated, undeterred by Max’s attitude. 

“What’ll it take to get me to the front of the line?” 

“What’dya got?”

A scowl, a ruffle of his jacket, his pockets, a glance to his empty car. Nothing. A few guns at the gate, some ammo, but then that’s what he was using to pay for this. 

“Three days, take it or leave it.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, turning to leave, stopped by the boy’s words.

“Hey are you headed for the Citadel? Word through the grapevine is that place has an endless supply of water, green food, veggables…whole lotta people are goin’ North…”

He didn’t answer, but grunted and left.

…

A place to rest his head might be nice, and a young girl told him of offered beds for trade for wanderers such as himself. He thanked her before her mother pulled her away, giving him a suspicious glare, and Max waved a friendly wave and she told him to scat. He did, wandering through the crowd of dirty men and women, the smell of sweat, sand, piss and shit in the air and he wondered if this place had pigs. Clean water was traded for ridiculous costs, food for less—it was easier to find—and young men and women for a warm body was a nice thing to have, company and possession, and he saw a brothel in the distance.

After 180something days he remembered them, the scrutiny they gave him, the fear they felt with his presence, and their gratification for his support. They wanted him to stay, to help rebuild, make the Citadel a prosperous paradise for those seeking shelter. He had to go. He couldn’t stay, didn’t want to, didn’t want to remember them, but now he did. Damn this town. Damn these people. Couldn’t he for once find peace? Just when he thought the flashbacks had ceased, bam! And he stumbled back, hand over his eyes, a striking blue pair in his memory, a look of hope, and he shook his head of it.

A few eyes turned his way, a man offered a chicken and he declined. Stumbling through the crowd, looking for that shelter with the traded beds the little girl told him of, he stopped a moment. It couldn’t be…could it?

A tall man, a big man, with bouncing muscles and thick dark hair and metal in his eyebrow passed by across the way, a gap in the crowd to accommodate his size. Two others were at his sides, average looking compared to him, yet looked the same as one another. Twin brothers perhaps? But what were they dragging behind them? Attached to a chain a thin pale wrist, trapped under a metal brace and Max thought it familiar. It couldn’t be…

Tall, skinny thing, slouched and slow, lips scarred and short dirty blonde hair stuck to his forehead with sweat of the day. Striking blue eyes caught Max’s gaze, and the pale boy stopped, a slack in the chain as his captors were slowed by the crowd. Eyes widening, set on him and him alone and Max gulped.

“Bloodbag?” the boy croaked, and he was pulled along again, forced through the crowd from the auction block. Bought? Had he been bought? Traded for?  
Max’s eyes widened in realization. He knew that boy, and he knew him to be dead. It couldn’t be him. Couldn’t be him at all, and yet…

Another flash sent him stumbling again, back into another man; big, fat, and mean and Max sighed before the brute and his cronies sent him to the dirt.


End file.
